Thief of Dreams (19 page)

Madeline's next question died away in her throat.

“She didn't know where to try after that,” James told her. “I think she called the Gateway Restaurant, maybe.”

For reasons she couldn't admit, even to herself, her eyes started to fill again, but she quickly wiped them and got control of herself. “Well,” she said. “Why don't I fix us a real good breakfast, run you by the doctor's office in Cedar Hill to see if it's really you under there, and then”—she cocked her head and winked at him—“force you to go to a movie?”

She took his chin gently and kissed him on the forehead. “I'll call Green's and tell them I won't be in until noon.”

“Ugh,” she said, picking up his bowl of cereal and making a face, “it's turned to glue! Makes you wonder what it does in your stomach,” she said and laughed. “I'll fix us some bacon and eggs.”

“I have to see Lester,” James said.

JAMES TALLY

The terrible thing was, although he'd been determined not to let her make him cry, he felt better. He didn't even feel betrayed by her mothering or his tears, not yet anyway.

“I'm about to pee my pants,” she said, rushing suddenly from the trailer. “I'll be right back, but I've got to call the store too.”

Washed out and frail, he sat where he was, thinking how easy and sweet it would be to give up and be forever what he'd been for the last half hour. He would love to go to a movie and watch something make-believe, something that couldn't come down from the screen and touch him or demand anything from him. And he would like to go to the doctor, just for the attention; except he knew he wasn't hurt. How great it would be, though, to go and be told he was very ill and didn't have long to live, three or four years, say. That was a thinkable amount of time, not at all like a lifetime; and it would change all his obligations. He could merely be gentle and wise and sympathetic. Who would expect more?

He could stay home. Read a lot. Sometimes he could listen to radio shows. Sometimes, if he felt well enough, he could be taken to movies or maybe for rides in the car. He thought it would be nice if he had to be in a wheelchair. But maybe it would be better if he only had to use canes. He had a vision of himself, pale, thin as a string, taking sad, slow, heroic strolls. Since there would be absolutely no harm in him, he wouldn't have to fear any. No one, not even Earl Carpenter and the Lanich twins, would dare do him injury, and he would be required to injure no one. Ill health and approaching death would be his only enemies, but only he would know that they were truly advocates because they would free him, bless him with peace at last, and he would bless everyone else. His mother. His father. Lester Buck. Everyone.

It was a vision of such sad happiness that he yearned for it, basked in it. If it wasn't perfection, it was for sure as close as the likes of him could come.

After a little while he realized the pressure in his own bladder had reached the threshold of pain, and he eased himself off the couch as though he really were very ill and almost unable to walk. At the open door he looked for his mother but didn't see her and slipped down the steps and around to the tongue of the trailer in order to put something between him and her approach, and there, took a long, delicious, shivering piss.

EDWARD TALLY

He was exhausted but wide awake, and all his senses were rubbed raw and keen by the time he entered the remote keep of the mountains and valleys where, for years, he'd climbed poles and pulled cable for Watauga Light and Power Company. Every turn of the road, every bridge, stream, dwelling, barn, field, and fence row was familiar, down to what looked like the selfsame haystacks and shocks of corn. Even the ragweed in the ditches was just as he remembered, and, bruised by man or animal or merely the wind, the scent it gave up was exactly right. And there was the scent of fallen leaves, melting frost, apples, and earth. The cold, varnished smell of fall—as well as what his nose believed it smelled of fur and feather—the wild spice of squirrel and rabbit, grouse and quail from his hunting days, and of gunpowder too, which allowed him to possess them. And all this pierced him as though it were the very soul of homecoming, as though he were returning to his true religion, whose tenets were not merely Madeline and James, but all the aspects of this early morning. Why his family and this familiar ground seemed to share a single spirit, he didn't know, but it felt real and true.

He was sure Bertha Marshall had told him Madeline worked at Green's Department Store, and he couldn't think what to do except walk right in and present himself. He thought of stopping somewhere and calling first, but the idea scared him. He didn't want to give Madeline time to remember all she held against him, and so, work up her anger and defenses. Anyway, it seemed to him that if he appeared without warning, she'd somehow be able to see his love better, in a truer light. She'd have to acknowledge its power to pull him back to her across a great distance without any pale, mechanical announcement beforehand. Anyhow he didn't want to give her a chance to turn him down or to run off where he couldn't find her.

It was only a bit more than eight miles to Cedar Hill, fifteen or twenty minutes, and the closer he got, the more nervous he became. His hand shook when he fished a cigarette from his pocket and shook when he lit it. He glanced at himself in the mirror and saw that his eyes were red and he needed a shave, that his shirt was wrinkled and his hair was every which way, as though he'd just gotten out of bed. He looked like a drunkard and a bum, which he feared was just the way Madeline thought of him. He rubbed his face vigorously with his hand, as though that would help, and combed his hair with his fingers. Hell, maybe she would pity him. He'd take that. He'd take anything as long as it would make her hold still long enough to hear him out. If she would do that, then he was certain everything could be saved, that his life and hers and James's too would make sense once again.

He flipped his cigarette out the window and lit another, his last, and drove the final few miles into Cedar Hill with sweat rolling down his ribs despite the cold air pushing through the open window.

Downtown there was a parking place right in front of Green's Department Store, and he took it, although he sat behind the steering wheel for a long, long moment before he worked up the courage to go inside. He didn't see her anywhere on the main floor or on the mezzanine above. Finally, feeling very uncomfortable, he tapped a saleslady on the shoulder who was refolding a man's dress shirt. “I'm looking for Madeline Tally,” he said. “Can you tell me if she works here?”

He had the feeling she gave him a quick appraisal. She seemed a little surprised and not much impressed. “I think she's not coming in until after lunch,” she said brightly. “Can I give her a message?”

“I'm her husband,” he said without knowing why he'd said it. It certainly wasn't a proper message, since he didn't want Madeline to know he wasn't in Pittsburgh until the moment she saw him; but somehow he wanted to set this lady straight.

“Oh,” she said and gave him a different kind of glance. Although he couldn't quite read the results of this one, he could tell she was embarrassed. “Her son … your son wasn't feeling well, I think, and didn't go to school, and she was looking after him, so …” She blushed. “I didn't take the call, but I can find out for you, Mr.… Tally.”

“I'll just go on over,” he said and blushed himself as though to keep her company.

In the car again, feeling compromised, he yanked the Packard into reverse and backed into the street without looking. Luckily no one was coming, but in glancing in the mirror long after it would have done him any good, he was struck again with how seedy he looked; and the sight of his once favorite barber shop a few doors down filled him with sudden inspiration. He had time. Plenty of time.

There was one new barber he didn't know, but otherwise nothing had changed, and being called by name and welcomed home with surprise and cheer made him feel better. He brought in a suitcase and asked to use the back room, where he could wash up and change. The black shoe shine, who was so old his brown eyes were nearly blue, brought him soap and a clean towel, and Edward stripped himself before the sink and washed Paris Pergola and Pittsburgh away, he hoped, forever.

When he got back in his car forty-five minutes later, the man who looked back at him from the rearview mirror was much more acceptable. His hair had been washed, cut, and combed. His face had been wrapped in hot towels, lathered, shaved clean, and massaged with shaving lotion. Errant hairs had been snipped from his eyebrows, nose, and ears. And finally, eyewash had made his eyes as clear as if he'd never missed a night's sleep or had a drink in all his days. “The works,” Roy Harris, the owner, called it and claimed it had restored many a sinner.

MADELINE TALLY

She'd had a well-deserved cry, a late breakfast, and a relaxed soak in the tub, so maybe it wasn't such a terrible day, but one of the good kind that drew people closer and made them stronger. Anyway that was how she'd decided to feel about it until someone knocked on the trailer door a little too loudly, and she opened it and found Edward. But in that moment of complete and utter cognition, all her thinking seemed suddenly meaningless, and everything she'd said and done in the last three months seemed null and void. He was supposed to be out of her life, a thousand miles away in another world. It was as if no time had passed since she'd seen him last and what had transpired from that day forward had only been a dream. If he existed, could she? She could not speak.

“Hello, honey,” he said.

“Dad!” James said from somewhere behind her.

“Hey, squirt!” Edward said. “Your granddaddy said you'd had a little misunderstanding on the school grounds, and I see he wasn't foolin.”

James came from behind her, brushing past her hip, not fast but not slow either, and was out the door and embracing his father. It wasn't something she'd ever seen him do, and it stung her.

“You came home!” James croaked, his face pressed into Edward's shirt.

Edward patted the crown of the boy's head. “We'll see, son,” he said.

How dare you? she thought. What gives you the right? How dare you when we're trying to make a decent life! She felt tears coming to her eyes, but she swiped them away as quickly as they formed. “James, you run up to the house now,” she said, surprising herself that she had a voice and that it sounded so even. “I'm sorry, honey.”

Edward held James gently away, looked in his eyes, and nodded that it was all right, that he should do as he'd been told; and in spite of herself, Madeline wanted to slap them both for the understanding that seemed to pass between them so easily, when Edward had done nothing, nothing whatever, to earn it.

“Hey, I'll see you in a little bit, buddy,” Edward said, but when he turned to her again, there was something so intimate in his eyes, she almost couldn't face it. All the years they had been married were contained in the way he was looking at her; still, she was having none of it and stared back at him steadily and evenly until his expression faded. He rubbed the back of his neck.

“So,” he said, “how have you been?”

She wanted to tell him she'd been just dandy until a few minutes ago. “All right,” she said.

“James has grown,” he said. He laughed and shook his head. “That's some black eye and fat lip he's sporting.”

She said none of the things that came to mind.

“I'd like to come in,” he said.

She stepped back and allowed him to enter.

“Well,” he said, glancing about as though he might tell her how nice the place looked but then realized how foolish it would sound. He sat down on the couch. “I talked to Bertha and Harley a little before I came out. They sure don't change much do they? They look real good. I even got the feeling they were glad to see me.”

She said nothing.

“Jesus, honey, I drove a hell of a ways to get here.”

“Why?” she said.

He looked at the floor and shook his head. “You can hold on to being mad longer and tighter than any woman I ever met,” he said and laughed a short, bitter laugh.

She felt as if her life, her true life, had snapped back into focus, and the question wasn't
If he existed, could she?
The question was
Would she ever feel quite real, quite whole without him, or would she and the whole world always feel false and made up and out of kilter?
“I got over being mad a long time ago,” she said. “I'm something else now. When I know what it is, I'll tell you.”

“You sound mad,” he said, looking at her.

She didn't know what to say, so she didn't say anything.

He smiled faintly, his eyes mild, his forehead a quandary of wrinkles. “You know, I think you've been mad at me for as long as I can remember.”

“That's ridiculous,” she declared, but she knew better. There was no reason to admit it because it was beside the point, and anyway, he'd earned her anger moment by moment and day by day. But it was true, she'd always been mad at him, and how odd to have married him, even so, and to have stayed with him for fourteen years. “I'm disgusted,” she said, “not mad. I can't go back and live my life over, Edward Tally, but I can make a new one. I thought you understood that. I thought you agreed!”

He nodded.

Her voice turned suddenly pitiful, and her eyes welled up. “You said you'd give me a divorce. It's not right for you to be here!” She stamped her foot and hated herself at once for the impotence of the gesture. “It's not! It's not good for James and it's not good for me!”

“I love you,” he said.

“Never,” she said. “You never did. Don't even say it. We count! We matter! And if you love someone …” She glared at him, unable to go on. “Oh, don't you do it,” she said in a softer voice. “Don't you dare do this.”